Abstract
Background Admissions to Tertiary care hospitals are on the rise while cost of patient care continues to increase. It has become a challenge for the sustainability of continuing free health care in developing countries like Sri Lanka. The need of costing studies is valuable in this scenario. This study analyzes diet cost for patients admitted to the Teaching Hospital Kalubowila (THK) which is a Tertiary care hospital in Colombo District, Sri Lanka. Methods This is a descriptive cross sectional study conducted retrospectively. The analysis was done using secondary data, during the period of 01.02.2014 to 28.02.2014. The cost analysis was done according to step-down method. Results Total admissions were considered and cost for the kitchen cost center (without raw material) was Rs 677,042/=. The unit cost per patient per meal was Rs.119/=. Discussion THK spends a high percentage of the operating expenses for diet. Further, out of the total hospital operating cost, two thirds were spent for salaries and wages. Suggest to introduce an awareness programme to relevant hospital staff, to highlight cost per diet per patient. This will help the staff to work with cost consciousness and consequently to improve efficiency.
Highlights
Sri Lanka has achieved a tremendous progress in curative and preventive health care aspects, compared to other South Asian countries
Cost analysis is of utmost importance especially in health systems which manage with scarce resources, but there is a paucity of costing studies in Sri Lanka as well as in other developing countries
This study revealed that diet cost per head at TH Kalubowila is Rs
Summary
Sri Lanka has achieved a tremendous progress in curative and preventive health care aspects, compared to other South Asian countries. Newbrander and Lewis pointed out that many countries have started to implement different methods to generate additional revenue resources to their hospitals and health care systems to minimize the growing gap of health requirements between available and required needs and resources [2] This gap may be due to deviated social, demographic and epidemiological changes in developing countries. Cost information is used by regional, provincial and national level managers and policy makers to compare the performance of similar types of units in other hospitals They may use such information for resource allocations, guideline preparation, setting priorities, identifying necessary infrastructure facilities and for new innovations to improve the performance of the hospitals. Admissions to Tertiary care hospitals are on the rise while cost of patient care continues to increase It has become a challenge for the sustainability of continuing free health care in developing countries like Sri Lanka. This study analyzes diet cost for patients admitted to the Teaching Hospital Kalubowila (THK) which is a Tertiary care hospital in Colombo District, Sri Lanka
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
